Effect of uniaxial strain on the quantum conductance of finite zigzag single wall carbon nanotubes

Mechanical deformations cause to change the electronic properties in carbon nanotubes. In this paper, the uniaxial strain and length effects have been investigated on the quantum conductance of (12,0) and (8,0) finite Zigzag Single Wall Carbon Nanotubes (ZSWCNT) at Fermi energy, using the tight binding model and the Green's function technique. In the absence of strain, all the finite ZSWCNTs are metal because of localization. Our probes show that by controlling the uniaxial strain and carbon nanotube length, a metal-semiconductor transition occurs for (8,0) finite ZSWCNT under the compressive strain condition and the length longer than 37 A(0). However, under the all strain and length variations that investigated conditions in this paper, the localization length is longer than the length of (12,0) finite ZSWCNT, so that it remains metallic and the quantum conductance is non-zero. Some exciting applications of the correspondence between the mechanical response and the electronic transport of the carbon nanotubes are nano-electromechanical switch, sensor applications.